Join us for a visit with some of our favorite authors whose books we love to read and share with everyone. You'll get to hear from authors who've become friends over the years, authors we're just discovering, and lots of prizes and books to win!

Pages

Friday, July 15, 2016

Michelle Styles: Ducklings at Dawn

Back in mid May, a fox managed to have one of our female
ducks as a midnight snack. She was sitting on a clutch of 10 eggs. As we had
lost several ducks to Mr. Fox and female ducks were getting scarce on the
ground, my husband forcefully argued for an incubator.

Duck eggs in the incubator

I agreed to try and see if we could raise ducks that way.
The incubator shop duly sent the kit within 24 hours. The kit included – an
incubator, a candling device, a brooder for after, a small feeder and water
container and a pen. In meantime, I put the eggs in the airing cupboard and
began turning them. I also added 2 more ducks that I had collected. I did not
really have much hope. At best I thought we might get one or two ducklings.

My cat taking an interest in the moving eggs

The incubator a RomCom 10 was easy to set up and I turned
the eggs 3 x times a day 180 degrees each time. I had put x and o’s on the eggs
so I knew which way was which. I marked on the calendar when they were due to
hatch. I also kept the water filled up. I did not bother with candling the eggs
to see if they were viable. My youngest son who is studying zoology at
university was convinced that I was just cooking the eggs and I would end up
with splattered rotten egg on the inside of the incubator.

Newly hatched duckling

Right on schedule on June 21st, we began to hear chirping. I opened the vent
of the RomCom and checked all 12 eggs seemed to be chirping. On 22 June, one duckling
made a small hole in its shell. It can take up to 48 hours for a duckling to
break through. It actually takes a lot of effort and the ducklings need to do
it themselves. They need to finish eating all the yolk and detach themselves.
If they don’t completely detach, they get a hernia and die soon after hatching.

Ducklings a few days old

Nothing happened for the rest of the day. On the morning of
the 23rd, the eggs were all still there but moving about. I went and
did my exercises but hurried back. One shell had developed a huge crack down
its side. First one duckling (a yellow one) emerged. It is important to keep
the incubator closed at this point so the humidity doesn’t go down. Ducklings
emerge wet from the shell. If the
eggshell is too brittle, the chicks can’t push their way out. After the first
two, things went quickly but it became apparent the ducklings were getting too
crowded. I quickly set up the brooder and the pen in the basement, along with
some water and chick crumbs for feed. Once the brooder was warm, I transferred the
hatched ducklings to their new home and put them under the brooder to dry. I left the rest of the eggs to hatch. They all
hatched but one duckling died very quickly after birth. It had developed a hernia
and so obviously had not detached properly from the yolk. It also could have
been too weak.

Ducklings on top of brooder at about a week

The rest have survived. The brooder remained in the pen for
2 weeks and I lifted it up as the ducklings grew. After the first day, I introduced bathing and
swimming – at first in a paint roller tray and then in our large roasting pan.
The first time they encountered water, the ducklings did not like it at all.
The second time, however, they realised that they were in fact ducks and loved
it.

Ducklings swimming

So I have 11 ducklings in the basement. They will go out to
the netted pen when they are 4 weeks old and then when they are about 8 weeks,
they will become free range like our other ducks. This is to protect them from predators
such as crows and sparrow-hawks which we get in the garden.

They are very cute but rapidly reaching the awkward feathers
coming in stage. They appear to be less frighten of people than my other ducks.

In other news:

I sold my latest Viking to Harlequin Historical – Sold to
the Viking Warrior will be out in February 2017.

When not looking after ducklings, Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romances for Harlequin Historical. Her latest Summer of the Viking was published in June 2015. You can learn more about Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk